Parliament Ends Royal African Company Monopoly, Flooding Colonies with Enslaved Africans

Parliament removed the Royal African Company's monopoly on the slave trade in 1698, opening the trade to all British merchants. The result was an immediate and dramatic surge in the volume of Africans transported to British colonies in North America. Where the RAC had shipped roughly 4,000 enslaved people per year in the late 1600s, independent traders now vastly expanded the trade. South Carolina and Virginia saw their enslaved populations grow exponentially in the decades immediately following. The RAC had previously branded enslaved Africans with the letters 'DY' (Duke of York) or 'RAC' on their chests using hot irons. The end of the monopoly transferred that brutality to dozens of competing private firms.